It seems that some politicians are given a free-pass when it comes to even the most basic knowledge. Take Sarah Palin. If you look at the list of statements that this woman has made over the last 3 years, it is mind boggling that anybody would ever want her as the leader of the free world. Let’s review her history here:

This is the same woman who told Charlie Gibson of ABC in a nationally televised interview that her foreign policy expertise included the fact that Russia could be seen from an island off the coast of Alaska. This, I might add, is an island that Palin had never once set foot upon. “You never know when ole Mr. Putin is gonna come flyin’ over here…”. Yep. She actually said that.

When asked which periodicals and publications she has been reading to keep up on national and world affairs, Palin told Katie Couric that she reads “them all”. Whenever Palin is baffled by a question she uses her standard “I like ’em all” answer, and that’s what she did. To this day, we still do not know what Palin reads to keep informed about national issues. Until four years ago, she never even had a passport and had never left the United States.

Sarah Palin has stated publicly that she does not accept the theory of evolution, not even understanding the meaning of the term “theory”, and that she believes in a literal translation of the Bible. This means Palin believes mankind walked alongside living dinosaurs and that the world is only 6,000 years old. Of course, when asked which book of the Bible she likes most, she would no doubt say, “I like ’em all.” Certainly, people are free to believe whatever they like, but Palin’s rejection of the scientific method hardly makes her the ideal leader of a nation of 300 million people which share a variety of beliefs.

When asked by Glenn Beck who her favorite Founding Father was, Palin stumbled with the question, then said– you guessed it– “I like ’em all.” When pressed by Beck, Palin said she liked George Washington the most, not knowing that Washington was a general and not one of the Founding Fathers. Furthermore, in her stone ignorance, she chose a man who actually favored a strong central government as well as the formation of a national bank. In other words, George Washington stood for everything that Palin says she is against. More recently, when asked what notable role Paul Revere played in the Revolution, she said he “warned the British” that they couldn’t just “come over here and take our guns…” by “ringing bells” and repeatedly firing his muzzle-loaded flint-lock rifle.

Probably one of Ms. Palin’s most hysterical misstatements occurred during the campaign when she referred to “the great country of Africa”. More recently, she didn’t seem to know why there was a North and South Korea. One has to wonder if she can’t figure out who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb.

During a Tea Party convention, Palin made several insulting remarks about President Obama, one of which accused him of being “a law professor lecturing the American people behind a lecturn using a teleprompter.” Of course, she failed to realize that she was doing precisely the same thing, only she was using the palm of her hand instead of a teleprompter.

What Palin is best known for is her bald-faced lie about “death panels” during and after the health care reform debate. Despite the fact that every fact checking organization had debunked that outrageous lie, Palin has stuck to her guns. Of course, she would never admit that private insurance companies already utilize de facto death panels by denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and canceling the policies of people who become ill.

Palin has referred to President Obama on numerous occasions as a socialist, but refuses to provide her definition of the term, no doubt because she doesn’t have it written on the palm of her hand. She doesn’t care that Obama hasn’t nationalized a single business, nor has he put any government employees into the boardrooms. Of course, Palin believes that Obama should have just let the auto companies fail, even though doing so would have caused hundreds of thousands of Americans to lose their jobs and essentially turned over that industry to foreign manufacturers. In recent weeks, we have learned of the remarkable rebound of the US auto industry and the fact that they have repaid most of the funds that the Obama administration LOANED to them. Not surprisingly, you won’t hear Sarah Palin talking about that.

In a closed meeting at the White House, Rahm Emanuel told a group of liberal activists that their idea to air attack ads targeting conservative Democrats who were against the health care reform bill was “f’ing retarded”. Palin, who has inserted her special needs child into the political arena before, demanded that Emanuel immediately resign. Then, when Rush Limbaugh said on national radio that all Democrats are retards, Palin went on FOX News and defended Limbaugh’s use of the word and his characterization of all Democrats. While his use of the term was insensitive and inappropriate, Emanuel said that an idea was “f’ing retarded”, while Limbaugh was using the term to describe a group of people he doesn’t like. But, according to Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh should get a pass. This could be a blatant case of hypocrisy, but it could also be that Palin is just too dim to understand the difference between what Emanuel and Limbaugh said.

Sarah Palin never speaks in specifics and is always on the attack, never offering a single constructive alternative. Why? Because she doesn’t know what the specifics are. It is far easier to make insinuations, and attack with empty-headed sarcasm than it is to develop your own well thought out ideas and articulate them in a comprehensible manner. We all get a good laugh about Sarah’s gaffes, but the time to stop laughing has come. This is a person who is building a political movement on the cult of her personality. She is a classic fascist masquerading as a populist who has managed to win the hearts and minds of far too many Americans. Even if she never ran for president, her influence on our political process and election outcomes could do great damage to the country.

Elia Kazan, the Academy Award-winning film director, said many years ago that the greatest danger to our democracy would be having person of no ability or intellect elected to high office based solely on their personal charm.

I fail to see how anybody could be shocked by Sarah Palin’s announcement that she is quitting her job as governor of Alaska 18 months before her term is completed.

She didn’t quit her job because of all the ethics probes, or because she wanted to spend more time with Trig. She didn’t quit because she’s tired of all the media attention she’s been getting since last August, either. She quit her job as governor of Alaska, because she’s incapable of conducting a national campaign for the presidency and fulfilling her duties to the state at the same time. She has a hard enough time focusing on one task at a time. She also can’t continue to attack the administration’s policies while continuing to ask for government hand-outs. Also, as a governor, she is accountable to the citizens of her state. As a private person, she’s accountable to no one. Finally, as the governor of a state with a smaller population than most major cities, she could never be perceived as a candidate with broad enough experience. Balancing the budget in Alaska is probably twice as easy as balancing the budget for the city of San Francisco.

This decision was driven by two things: naked political ambition and the ongoing influence of William Kristol and other ultra-conservative Republicans who think she is the cat’s meow. Who hasn’t noticed Palin’s inexplicably high opinion of herself and her ongoing attempts to climb up onto the national stage?

Her impromptu “news conference” on Friday was a cynical political ploy. These are the kinds of announcements one makes right before a long holiday weekend, when voters are busy with family outings and barbecues. Also, the Michael Jackson fiasco gives Palin additional, serendipitous cover for her abandonment of her office and its responsibilities. Clearly, Palin’s statement was hastily thrown together and unrehearsed. Her remarks meandered all over the map, jumping from one subject to the next without segues or logical connections. She just needed to get the statement out quickly and avoid any embarrassing questions from the media. It was a grotesque display of media manipulation.

What was most insulting about Palin’s announcement was the breath-takingly idiotic logic she used in justifying her decision. She chose to make herself a “lame duck” governor when she decided not to seek re-election. And, now, she expects us to believe her suggestion that all lame duck governors do is go on junkets and use tax-payer money to enjoy their last days in office. It sounded as if she was saying that no lame duck governor could resist this behavior, and that she was going to save the people of her state from that kind of abuse by walking away from the office to which they had elected her. The fact is, the excuse Palin gave for resigning was probably an insult to the +20 Republican governors of other states who are also lame ducks.

Sarah Palin has been convinced by her sycophantic group of supporters that she has a shot at being elected President of the United States. All she has to do is spend millions of dollars traveling the world and campaigning throughout the lower 48 states for the next 3 years. Nobody told her that quitting her job might make her look impulsive, irrational, untrustworthy and irresponsible. Nobody told her that being a quitter was a huge negative. And, nobody told her that using totally illogical reasons for abandoning her office would come back to haunt her. Unfortunately (or fortunately), she’s too dim to figure these things out for herself.

For the last year, many Americans have been incensed by Sarah Palin’s and Rush Limbaugh’s inflammatory remarks. The ad hominem attacks waged by these two on their political rivals and anybody who didn’t agree with their ideology have made them both the target of blistering counterattacks in the press and, especially, in blogs. I’m guilty of this behavior myself, even though I’ve tried to stick to the facts in criticizing them. It is unfortunate that, in our attempts to discredit and criticize people like Limbaugh and Palin, we become so much like them. David Letterman’s completely inappropriate insult of a teenage girl who happens to be Sarah Palin’s daughter was as unacceptable as anything Palin said during the campaign, and yet many people rush to defend Letterman simply because they hate Palin. The back and forth salvos of insults are in major conflict with the fundamental message of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and what he has tried to do since his inauguration. The most depressing part of this is that our behavior appears to be a basic part of human nature. Neither side of the argument can help themselves, nor do they really want to because they’re convinced that they’re 110% right in their views. The stridency that this certainty breeds is most evident in people like Limbaugh, but we all suffer from the malady. I suppose that partisanship is an unavoidable side effect of all politics. Self-interest is the driving force, whether it’s the desire to increase one’s radio show ratings and make ungodly sums of money, or attain political influence and power. The fact is, we can discredit the greedy charlatans and incompetents without resorting to their tactics. American politics needs to show a lot more maturity. The schoolyard mentality is not helping us “form a more perfect union.” The underlying message here seems to be that we need to try harder as a people to become less like our enemies, whether they’re spewing their hate in a press conference, radio sound booth, or village in Pakistan.

Sarah Palin, still tryin’ to hoist herself up there on that big ol’ national stage, made an utter fool of herself in a speech she gave in Anchorage, Alaska this week. Now definin’ herself as an expert on finance and economics, she said that the Obama administration’s fiscal policies “defy Economics 101.” This, comin’ from a person with a B.A. in journalism who runs an oil-rich state that has fewer residents than most big cities. She went on to say that the government is planning to “bail out debt ridden states” so it can “get in there and control the people.” This, of course, is completely consistent with her assertion that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists”. Obviously, she is onto to his evil plot to be the first African-American socialist Muslim baby-killing dictator.

Not surprisingly, she eschews historical fact when she asks, “Since when can you get out of huge national debt by creating trillions of dollars of new debt?… It all really is so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this economic policy is explained.”Say what? Palin is forgettin’ that Ronald Reagan, the father of the man she was introducin’ in her speech, was confronted by two recessions as president. In response, Reagan initiated massive government spending, mostly in the military sector, and racked up historical amounts of debt in order to stimulate the economy. The Reagan tax hikes were some of the biggest in history and it took Paul Volcker, who is now part of Obama’s economic team, to get the resulting inflationary spiral under control.

Palin finishes her self-immolation when she concludes “We need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and fearful lawmakers, being led to believe that big government is the answer, to bail out the private sector, because then government gets to get in there and control it… And mark my words, this is going to be next, I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states. Then government gets to get in there and control the people.”(Don’t feel bad. I had to read it a couple of times, too). Again, Ronald Reagan’s initial economic approach was to limit government. But this resulted in adding over $2 trillion to the national debt, more than twice the total debt of all previous U.S. Presidents combined. George W. Bush, having never picked up a U.S. History or Economics textbook, broke Reagan’s record national debt by a significant margin. So much for Palin’s doctoral thesis on fiscal conservatism.

Sarah Palin’s closing remarks in this speechifyin’, once again, defy interpretation– or English translation: “Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of principles, providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord… Those principles it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here.”(OK. Take your time and read it again. I understand. It’s like interpreting monkey talk).

So, why are we still listening to and talking about Sarah Palin? First of all, because she is entertainin’ as hell. But, more importantly, we need to understand that a lot of our fellow citizens stand up and cheer when this person talks.

I have uncovered irrefutable evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and the Ignoramusus Palinicus actually walked side-by-side on the North American continent millennia ago, despite what those stupid Paleontologists have been claiming at colleges and universities for the last century. Of course, only the Ignoramusus still survives today, as is evidenced by the continued sightings in various news clips, interviews and no-questions-allowed news conferences. Scientists suspect that it may be a rare paleolithic survival and last of a dying breed. The Ignoramusus once had the dubious distinction of being the only talking dinosaur. However, since nobody could ever quite follow what the creature was trying to say, some believe it was simply mimicking the sounds of another moribund species, Evangelicus Republicanum, and couldn’t actually speak at all. There is now a consensus among experts that, when it came to basic intelligence, Ignoramusus made other dinosaurs look like white-haired German physicists. Sadly, despite its continuing efforts to breed, it would appear that this species is teetering on the brink of extinction, and that the only evidence it ever lived will be a few hilarous Saturday Night Live skits and a pile of really expensive designer clothes that was found hidden inside its closet.

If you watched the turkey interview given by Sarah Palin, you must have asked yourself why it was covered by the national news services. How many interviews does this person have to give, butchering language, logic and now fowl, before some people accept the fact that she makes most high school cheerleaders sound like they have a doctorate in English Literature. Every time she opens her mouth, she confirms the fact that she cannot speak a single coherent, complete sentence, and is unable to articulate the suffix “ing”. In this particular interview, she tries to sound politically adroit in her folksy kind of way, but comes off like Leo Gorcey from the old Deadend Kids serials. Of course, the turkeys being slaughtered in the background aren’t the issue. It’s the idea that she was so totally oblivious to what was going on right behind her and how disconnected it was from what she was talking about. An intelligent person would not try to add “a little levity” to a scene of animals being bled out right behind them. It was a classic metaphor of her world-view. A complete lack of awareness. If Palin ever wants to be taken seriously in national politics, the first thing she’ll have to do is go back to high school and take a few English and public speaking courses. Maybe some World and U.S. history classes would help, and a couple of semesters studying world georgraphy wouldn’t hurt, either. Unfortunately, there is no course that will correct her intellectual impairment. And the college that gave her the degree in Journalism should lose its accreditation immediately. This woman is a walking traffic accident and right now the whole country is rubbernecking, hoping to catch her next slaughtering of the language.

I just read this very interesting bit of information on a blog and thought I would share it because most people don’t know how Sarah Palin managed to come from out of the blue when McCain chose her as his running-mate. A recent article in The New Yorker revealed how Palin was sold to the Republican National Committee by contributors to The Weekley Standard and National Review. Neocon ideologues William Kristol and Fred Barnes were guests of Governor Palin at her “mansion” during an Alaskan cruise, i.e. junket, back in 2007. Subsequently, a group from The National Review including John Bolton, Robert Bjork and Dick Morris made a similar trip to Palin’s mansion. Basically, these men loved Palin and concluded that she should be on the ticket because her ideology was so strikingly similar to George W. Bush. These are the people who then wielded influence with John McCain and the heads of the RNC, and they are the ones who convinced the Republican nominee that Sarah Palin would bring the base of the party onboard. McCain, being the cynical and easily manipulated political creature that he is, bought their argument and, to this day, defends his indefensible and totally blind choice of a running-mate. This bit of background explains why he never vetted Palin and that it didn’t matter whether she was qualified to be President or not. Country first? Not even close. It also provides the context for Chris Buckley’s decision to resign from The National Review, a magazine which was started by his father.

What is most interesting about all this is that this presidential candidate played no role in the selection of his running-mate, beyond saying “OK”. Sarah Palin was basically foisted upon John McCain, who accepted her without any vetting at all on his part. The notion that political operatives can subvert the system and impose such an overtly unqualified running-mate on a candidate in a presidential election is downright frightening. Especially when you consider that the candidate was the oldest to ever be nominated.